43 women writers58 poems, essays, and short stories1 anthology celebrating the human journeyWhat happens in a women’s writing circle? Community, stories, laughter, tears—the best things that make us human. In this stirring anthology edited by Market Street Writers founder Lisa Colburn, 43 women writers share poems, essays, and short stories that speak to us of anger and grief, tenderness and joy, longing and reverence, liberally spiced with humor and heart.

Unfolding has five broad themes:In “Origins,” we read about the prehistoric earth, ancestral influences, and childhood memories. These include a touching elementary school art lesson, a milestone bus ride, and daily life on a West Virginia farm.

“Herstory” features romantic and familial relationships, journeys to independence, aging, and what it means to go through life in a female body. We read about significant objects—record albums, couches, reading glasses, bicycles—and a tour boat experience that goes terribly wrong.

“Writing” covers resistance, procrastination, and wrestling with words, but also the wonder and magic of creating. We learn about the reassurance of holding a Dixon Ticonderoga #2 pencil, a library that offers more than books, and how poems can get downright sassy.

“Longings” encompasses the desire for romantic love, as well as a polar bear’s hunger for a place to rest, a woman’s craving for a body free from illness, the universal yearning for a place to call home, and the remembrance of loved ones no longer with us. “Reverence” finds the miraculous in a spider’s web and the ant on the rim of a cat’s water bowl.

We also enter the spiritual realm, exploring death and what lies beyond it. In the Appendix, there is a list of writing prompts for the stories and poems that had their origins in writing workshops.

This collection shows us what it means to be human—in all our strength and frailty, our darkness and our light. This is the human journey, ever unfolding.

Editorial ReviewsThis collection will assure you that being human is glorious, weird, terrifying, and the best thing you ever did. I could not put it down.

—Maureen Buchanan Jones, author of Maud & Addie and blessed are the menial choresThese pieces invite the reader to intimacy, allowing glimpses of lives and minds, real and imagined, humorous and heartbreaking, powerful and profound. —Sue Reynolds, Board Chair, Amherst Writers & ArtistsThere is a wealth of wisdom and heart in these pages.

—Stacey K. Guenther, PhD, editor of Leadership at the Spiritual Edge Dive into this book at random and discover new voices.

Then let their words inspire you to consider the excellent writing prompts at the end of this book, take up your own pen, and put it to the page. —Jan Haag, Editor, Amherst Writers & Artists PressAbout the EditorLisa Colburn is an Amherst Writers & Artists writing workshop leader, journaling teacher, and creativity coach.

Her poems, essays, and articles have appeared in Peregrine, Washingtonian, The Washington Post, and other print and online publications. Before founding Market Street Writers in 2012, Lisa had a 20-year editorial career in New York City and the Washington, DC, metro area.

She lives in Leesburg, Virginia. Learn more at marketstreetwriters.

com. .